


I'll Be The Cure

by fourfreedoms



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal, Blowjobs, Drunk Sex, Fingering, First Time, Knotting, M/M, Overstimulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-20 01:02:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11325420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourfreedoms/pseuds/fourfreedoms
Summary: Patrick always tells him that when Jon’s First Night comes he doesn’t have to go through with it. Nobody can make him. They’ve come a long way in the last fifty years. But it’s easy to justsay that, Patrick wouldn’t be failing everybody in his life to simply say no.Jonny's an omega with an arrangement with an alpha for his first heat. Patrick is not that alpha.





	I'll Be The Cure

**Author's Note:**

> So many people helped in the writing of this fic, which wound being more than a year long endeavor, but in particular: cupstealer, cooliofoolioz, frosting50, joyfulseeker, and sorrylatenew were indispensable. They bucked me up when I needed it, talked me down off ledges, didn't let me delete everything in a fit of crazed paranoia, and spent endless hours brainstorming with me. SO THANK YOU VERY MUCH. THIS FIC WOULD NOT EXIST WITHOUT YOU. 
> 
> Basically, this fic was purely a vehicle for dirty porn, but somehow I wound up writing rando made up science in here too. UH ENJOY?
> 
> WARNING: There is one instance where both characters have sex while intoxicated and later regret it for external reasons. Nevertheless, they're both fully consenting adults.

It’s not that Jon doesn’t think it’s a big deal. It is a big deal. He’s male and omega and going on 22, and he hasn’t had a heat. It’s rare and weird, he knows that, but it’s not like he _minds_ it. Aside from the occasional over-zealous alpha getting up in his business, he might as well be a null. It’s just hormones, hormones that he apparently doesn’t have. He doesn’t feel incomplete or some bullshit. That’s all just purist talking head nonsense. Jon doesn’t _want_ an alpha, and without a heat, the concept of needing one doesn’t really apply. He’s certainly not wetting his ass every time an alpha walks by. He can play hockey just fine without needing to get stuffed 24/7. 

But it’s never going to be that simple. Not for him. Not with purist parents. 

Jon’s First Night, his very first heat, has been contracted out to the daughter of another purist family since before he could skate. And it may not bother Jon that heat remains elusive, but every year that passes and he continues without reaching sexual receptivity the guilt grows. He _should_ care. He should be desperately praying for heat to arrive. 

Jon has certain obligations—obligations to his family legacy. His grandfather is fond of reminding him that the Toews family have been stalwart upstanding members of their community for generations—to have it end like this, with Jon, the favored first son, a genetic freak—would be nothing short of an embarrassment. If it didn’t happen soon they would all have to face up to the fact that something had gone very wrong, that Jon’s biology was flawed. They’d pass his contract off to a distant cousin to fill, and never again be able to offer for a family with a strong lineage. 

Jon shouldn’t hope for that so desperately. The guilt of it consumes him. But his first night? He doesn’t see how anybody could want that—the utter lack of control, completely at the mercy of an alpha he hasn’t seen since he’d attended stupid garden parties as a child, playing lawn games and awkwardly holding hands, already feeling the dense weight of expectation upon their little shoulders. He’s not what anybody would term a romantic, but the cold practicality of it has always filled him with unease. 

He’s spent a lot of pain and wasted energy wishing things were different, even as he tells himself that it’s just the way it is. Patrick’s situation is different. He’s an alpha for one, but his parents are also chill. They don’t care one way or the other what their son does. He could participate in a thousand First Nights without settling down, or claim a mate tomorrow, or even get together with somebody without the alpha/omega mutation of the X or Y chromosome, and it would all be good with them. Patrick always tells him that when Jon’s First Night comes he doesn’t have to go through with it. Nobody can make him. They’ve come a long way in the last fifty years. But it’s easy to just _say that_ , Patrick wouldn’t be failing everybody in his life to simply say no. They wouldn’t even lift an eyebrow at him. When Patrick brings up things like “choice” and “antiquated customs” Jon does his best not to get mad at him. He can’t really help it after all. He grew up with all the freedom in the world and he doesn’t understand Jon’s inability to reach out and grab his own. 

They had that fight a lot as rookies, over and over. 

“It doesn’t matter if you think it’s stupid,” Jon had argued the last time it ever came up. “My family doesn’t. I can’t just peace out and shack up with somebody else.” 

“If they loved you, they wouldn’t do this!” Patrick had argued back. 

“You don’t get it! This _is_ love. They want to ensure my future! Help to set me up with a good partner.” Jon had been so frustrated he’d tossed his half-full water bottle across the room. 

Patrick hadn’t been stymied by the solid smack the bottle made upon impact with the wall. “And what if you’re not compatible? Do you just keep laying back like some blowup doll until some chick finally claims you?” he spit out. “Tazer—all you talk about is how you don’t want to settle down, how you don’t get the nulls on the team who get married at twenty-two. You can’t tell me you want that.” 

Jon’s lips had thinned. “They have a choice, don’t they.” 

“So do you!” Patrick had shouted, frustrated. “It’s not the dark ages anymore, jesus.” 

“Shut up! Just shut up. I’m not gonna—I won’t just let some girl—but you have to understand that I have to go through the motions?” He’d buried his face in his hands and hadn’t even realized there’d been tears in the corners of his eyes until he’d cleared his throat and it came out thick and watery, until Patrick had seen his face, red and distraught, and finally dropped it for good. 

Jon’s not sure why Patrick got so up-in-arms over it anyway. It’s not like he doesn’t have his own bullshit to deal with given the mandatory weekly checks of his androgen levels—one high reading and he’s benched. To say nothing of all the ridiculous stereotypes reinforced by Hollywood and porn and the media that he’ll go mad with lust or rage at any moment. 

Once, back in their second season, Patrick had gotten yelled at for being distracted at practice following a poor night of sleep. The other guys had started cracking jokes—maybe the alpha needs to get laid, maybe the alpha’s gotten all backed up, maybe the alpha’s a little tense. It was barely even different than the way they’d chirp the other nulls on the team, but it had been a step too far and Patrick’s unexpected wrathful outburst had only added fuel to that fire. Patrick wound up yelling himself hoarse at the entire locker room, shouting about how he wasn’t some over-sexed maniac until Jon had had to intervene and tell him to hit the showers. 

Patrick was sheepish about it lying in bed that night with the darkness in their little hotel room making it easier to talk. 

“They think I only ever have sex on the brain,” Patrick had grumbled to Jon. He’d been gruff, but Jon had been able to hear the weariness and disappointment behind it. 

Jon, mindful of how fraught the moment was, had had to restrain himself from laughing. They’d been rooming together for over a year, and at that time Patrick was showering twice a day for nearly thirty minutes apiece. Jon would’ve had to have been a moron not to know what he was up to. 

Patrick had been completely unembarrassed when Jon tried to delicately point that out, and then he’d proclaimed that he didn’t do it anymore than the average null. Which, Jon hadn’t known anything about that. He’d been interested in sex as much as the next guy at 20. Omega or not, he was still a guy, mercy to his own raging testosterone, but he didn’t need to take care of the plumbing the way Patrick did at that age. Masturbatory habits aside, he knew Patrick had more than sex on the brain—that he wasn’t some mindless beast searching for his next rut. And he also knew what it felt like to be judged for his biology. 

They say a lot of shit on Deadspin about Jon being frigid or having some kind of hormone insensitivity syndrome that Jon thinks may actually bother Patrick more than it bothers him, but it’s also nothing to the way mothers and fathers occasionally tighten their hands on their daughter’s shoulders when they’re in Patrick’s presence, like he might leap at them at any moment. 

Patrick doesn’t get into any fights on the ice, and he doesn’t complain about the tests. Sometimes he disappears for a few days only to return, satisfied and smug, smelling of an omega’s heat, but it’s not like he’s like that all the time. Jon hasn’t ever seen him in a rut. Why would he? That’s for behind closed doors. 

Jon had only been captain for a short while, but the next day he’d made it clear there was going to be no more of that chirping, at least while he was around. Patrick talked a good game and was so good at appearing unfazed by whatever people might throw at him that sometimes they all forgot themselves a little. 

Patrick acts like he never notices the way people can get weird and tense around him, but Jon knows it hurts him, being treated like he’s some feral animal. It’s stupid and unfair, and it’s only fueled by a lot of dumb porn fantasies that have always made heat sound like some tantric orgiastic dream and not just some inevitable quirk of their DNA, a stupid biological urge steeped in a lot of backwards cultural tradition. Patrick got enough of that shit from the rest of the world, he didn’t need it from his own team. 

*

Jon doesn’t realize what’s happening at first. It’s gone so long without change, he’d stopped searching for the signs of receptivity. Later, looking back, he realizes he should’ve known, but it was OT, Game 6, everything on the line, and when they won, Patrick hammering home that goal, he hadn’t taken the sudden brightness of the arena, the crispness of the air—all of it—as anything more than wild elation at winning. 

By the time he does realize, he’s been drinking celebratory champagne and shots for hours and the frenzy is upon him. He’s drunk and exhausted from nearly 8 weeks of playoffs, and he doesn’t know how to deal with the sudden warmth in his skin, his leaking ass, the desperate ache inside him. He doesn’t know where he is, too out of it to remember he’s supposed to wait, hold himself together until he can get to that girl in Winnipeg so he can have his First Night. He just _wants_ , he wants so bad and so much that it hurts. 

And then somebody’s hands are on him, soothing him, and they’re pressing kisses to his open mouth, and everything goes white hot in his head. He feels right, he feels perfect, he feels so fucking good. He loses himself in that sensation and then there’s somebody moving inside him, pounding into him, somebody who makes him gasp and moan. He clutches at their shoulders, dragging his nails down the strong muscles in a broad back and he lets himself sink into the sensation, opening himself up to it. 

He cries out because he’s coming, that fast and that easy, and the lips are back on his mouth, swallowing his moans. 

It goes on like that, over and over, Jon lost in the euphoria, until at last everything goes dark. 

*

Jon wakes up the next morning, mouth dry, feeling like a spike has been driven through his forehead. He’s dizzy and queasy and maybe probably still a little drunk. He doesn’t know where he is or why his ass is sore. For some reason Patrick is lying naked beside him, a sheet barely covering anything. It takes a long time for him to make sense of anything, but when he does, he tumbles from the bed. 

At least he knows where he is now: Seabs’ guest room. 

“Oh, fuck,” he says, stumbling into the bedside table. “Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” 

Patrick blearily raises his head, before making a noise of distress, squinting into the sunlight pouring into the room. He’s got dark circles under his eyes and he’s a mess, but bits and pieces of the night before are floating back to Jon. The way he’d begged for it, the way Patrick had filled him up, the way he’d felt like he was soaring, better than winning the cup, better than winning the Conn-Smythe. 

“Kaner,” Jon says, feeling shaky, just barely holding back from the edge of full scale panic. 

Patrick groans and then opens his eyes again, shading them with his hand. “What?” he says creakily. 

“I—we—” Jon tries to get out, throat tight. He stops. What the fuck is he going to do? 

Patrick finally seems to notice his distress and he pushes himself up, looking around. “Jonny, did we—” he cuts himself off, dawning horror spreading across his face. 

Jon swallows down a gulp of air. “Yes, oh my god, yes. My First Night. My fucking First Night.” 

“How?” 

Jon shakes his head, feeling ill. “I don’t know. I—it hit me last night.” 

Patrick shakes his head like he still can’t believe it. “The last thing I remember is dancing with some chick after we all came back for Seabsie’s house party and then I smelled the best thing in the world and—” Patrick gulps. “You, I smelled you.” 

Jon sobs and slides down the wall, face in his hands. 

“Jonny,” Patrick says, nearly tripping as he gets up out of bed. “Jonny don’t.” 

And then he’s on his knees in front of Jon, cock hanging flaccid, but still impressive against his thigh, and Jon gets the strongest flashback yet, of Patrick holding his hands to the pillow as he fucks in deep, telling him he’s perfect in the most softly reverential voice Jon’s ever heard. Jon shudders and looks away, trying not to breathe too deep, because Patrick stinks—of sweat and stale alcohol, but mostly of Jon’s own scent. This may be one of the worst mistakes he’s ever made, worse than the time he got arrested in college, and somehow despite the horror of it he can still feel that residual crackle of arousal. 

He shoves Patrick away and moves to the opposite side of the room. “I’m such a fuckup. What am I going to tell them?” he says after a long moment. “All these years.” 

There’s a long, horrible, tense silence, where Jon fears his heart is going to beat right out of his chest. “You’re going to lie,” Patrick finally says. 

“What?” Jon asks, turning back to look at him. 

Patrick nods. “Lie.” 

“But—” 

“There’s no way to tell is there? That it’s the first one? They have to take it on faith.” 

Jon’s silent, thinking it through. It’s true. He could. He could pretend the next one is the real one, fool them all. 

“I know you hate lying,” Patrick says, and he looks wan and thin and tired. “But Jonny, they shouldn’t get to control you anyway. You were never going to let some alpha claim you, so who cares if it’s a lie? They’ll get their stupid ritual and finally be happy, and nobody has to be the wiser.” 

Jon nods weakly. It’s his only option really. He doesn’t want to know how they’d react if he came home and told them he’d broken the contract, but not only that, with Patrick, his teammate, and a man. 

“I can’t believe we fucked in Seabs’ house,” Patrick says, sitting back and rubbing at his forehead. “D’ya think they heard?” 

Jon goes cold all over again. 

But it turns out they’re okay. It’s still early in the morning yet and there are people passed out all over the house in various states of undress. Jon and Patrick weren’t the only people getting down last night. Jon steals some food from Seabs’ fridge and goes and finds the aspirin for his aching head and then he tells Patrick firmly, “This can’t ever happen again.” 

“Obviously,” Patrick snorts, casting a look over Jon like he’d never even consider it. 

Jon nods. He still feels like crap, a stressed-out roiling mess. “I need to go home,” Jon says, meaning Winnipeg, not his apartment. He clears his throat. “We probably shouldn’t...” 

He realizes he doesn’t know how he means to finish that sentence—shouldn’t talk about it ever again, shouldn’t see each other for a while, shouldn’t keep in touch over the summer? Because even though he feels like death warmed over, aware of all the aches and pains of the last few months, he knows what it’s like now and he _wants_. It steals his breath and makes him feel as out-of-his-head as he was last night, but it’s true. 

“Okay,” Patrick says, as if that answers anything at all. 

*

The next heat hits in mid-July. He’s sober for it, although he wishes he wasn’t. The whole time there’s a part of him that’s aware of his utter lack of control, and he hates it. She’s fresh-faced and pretty for all that he barely remembers her from when they were kids. She explains that he’s not the first omega she’s been with, but that it’s her first time with an omega in heat. 

“Were you waiting for me?” he grits out, lying in his bed, burning up as she takes her clothes off. She didn’t have to. There’s nothing in their contract that requires her to abstain from somebody else’s heat—he’s the only one expected to save it. 

“Yes,” she says firmly, combing out her long red hair with her fingers before climbing onto the bed with him. The look on her face suggests she’s upset at him for even asking. “I’m not trashy.” 

Jon’s barely holding it together, when she sinks herself down on him, dumping her pheromones all over him, calming the sudden storm inside his brain, his last thought is ‘who said anything about trashy?’ 

It’s over quicker than he would’ve expected, only a couple hours, rather than the whole night he half-remembers from last time. It breaks, and as Jon is settling back into himself, she puts her clothes back on and apologizes to him because she’s not interested in taking someone like him for a mate. She sees the look on his face and quickly clarifies that she’s not saying anything against his family, but he’s a professional athlete and they’re from different worlds. He snorts with sudden unexpected laughter. Is this what he has to look forward to every time from here on out when an alpha doesn’t want him?

“You and I aren’t really on the same level, are we?” she says as she’s buttoning up her blouse. “I’m going into my second year of grad school and you—” 

“Didn’t even finish college?” he finishes for her. He wonders if she doesn’t realize that that’s still pretty insulting. Not that it matters. “I’m not taking a mate.” 

“What, not ever?” she says, blinking at him. 

Jon makes a face at her. “Would you want to be claimed like a—a prize at a raffle?” 

“No, I suppose not,” she says after a long moment. “But what are you going to do? Live the rest of your life with some _null_?” 

Jon clears his throat and gets up from the bed, heading for the en suite naked. She tracks him with heated eyes, lingering on his chest and abs and cock. It brings him a little gratification to know that if nothing else, she finds him attractive. 

“I’ll be going,” she says to his back. 

“Okay,” he replies and then shuts the bathroom door behind him. He showers for a long time afterwards, wishing very keenly he could tell Patrick about it, like it was before what happened on his First Night, back to the days where they could just shoot the shit as the only 47 Karyotypes on the team. He’ll see him in a few weeks at Sharpy’s wedding, but the thought also makes him a little sick. 

*

The next two heats go better. Both times he goes out and simply waits for an alpha to come to him. He has his choice this way, can reject or accept whoever he pleases. He tells them he’s not looking for a claim, and they understand. 

Hazy recollections of that first time with Patrick keep coming to him at inopportune moments. Maybe he was just drunk, but that first time had seemed way better. These last three he hasn’t been able to understand what the fuss is about. He’s pretty sure it’s not all porn giving him too high expectations. He knows plenty of omegas who’ve enjoyed heat perfectly fine. Just, Jon isn’t one of them apparently. 

He decides to try it with another male alpha when it hits in early September, just to see if that’s why he’s having so much trouble with this. It’s a little embarrassing, but maybe he just needs to be penetrated the way Patrick had taken him. A few months ago the thoughts would’ve shamed him deeply, but now he just wants his heats to be the least awful they can possibly be. 

It doesn’t really make a difference though. He still wants to claw his skin off, and spends the entire time with sanity in his grasp, waiting to get back to normal. He chalks up his memories of that first time to drunken nostalgia. 

Patrick was right about one thing though. It does get his grandparents off his back. They’ve been very proud of him for winning the cup and the Conn-Smythe all summer long, but he can tell that his alpha grandfather is mostly relieved about the onset of his receptivity, however belated. He has to extricate himself when a few of his uncles, drinking too much beer at a family get together, start extolling the virtues of the claim for young omegas like himself. 

Jon envies nulls the privacy they have over their own sex lives. Every time heat comes, every alpha and omega in the vicinity can tell afterwards. They know he was a sobbing moaning wreck just the day before, begging for sex. Nulls don’t have these conversations with their uncles like sex is a normal part of the family dialogue. At least he thinks they don’t. 

“I don’t know why it bothers you so much,” Dan tells him when they’re out for drinks. “It’s straightforward.” 

It’s such a null thing to say, so Jon doesn’t hold it against him. “What about it is straightforward exactly?” 

“I dunno, that you can fuck for a few hours and figure out if they’re right for you. None of this bullshit about dating, people getting too invested, so on and so forth.” 

“I still date,” Jon points out, eyeing him over the rim of his beer bottle. 

“Yeah, but that’s just for now.” 

“What if I ended up with a null girl?” Jon says, setting his beer down and peeling at the label. 

“I’d say you better wear a bulletproof vest the day you tell your grandpa,” Dan replies with laugh, then he gets a better look at Jon’s face and his eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “JT, are you serious?” 

Jon shrugs. He’s never really spoken to Dan about this. It never used to matter because he hadn’t reached receptivity. Now it’s at their door. 

“Spending too much time with Kane,” Dan says lightly. “His ideas are rubbing off on you.” 

Jon doesn’t know why that makes him blush, Dan doesn’t mean it any kind of way, but he can feel his cheeks flaring up red and hot, he takes a long swallow of his beer and hopes that Dan can’t see it in the light. 

He probably won’t end up with a null anyway. A 46er’s expected lifespan is about 70 years shorter than what Jon will likely live. People still do it—obviously they do. His aunt on his mother’s side was born without the alpha/omega mutation, and she married a boy she grew up with, an omega. Jon doesn’t want to know what his uncle’s heat is like without the assistance of alpha pheromones, although Patrick told him once you could get them artificially. 

“Would you?” Jon had asked him their rookie season, lying in the dark in their hotel room. “If you were me?” 

He’d expected Patrick to say yes, but he’d taken a long time to respond. “I don’t know, she could die at half my age, and my kids, if they took after her, I could outlive them.” 

“There’s no guarantee your children would have the mutation regardless.” 

“No, but the odds are a hell of a lot better,” Patrick had said fervently. 

Jon blows out a breath, shaking his head to clear it. 

“It’s not about dating nulls,” Jon explains to Dan. “You say it’s straightforward, but what it really means is that I’ll have no say in who I end up with.” 

It’s 2010, not 1950. Jon isn’t legally bound to say yes to the first alpha who claims him anymore, but social norms make it pretty clear exactly what options he does have—eventually he’ll have to accept one, unless he wants to look like some radical and put his grandparents into an early grave. 

“Too bad you can’t wait them out,” Dan says with a faux mournful face. He doesn’t have any grandparents left while Jon’s are likely to be around for at least another fifty years. “Although I’m sure you’d be a hit at like, 75. Get a walker with the tennis balls, belt your pants up real high, I hear chicks dig it. You’ve got heat! Who needs viagra.” 

“Shut up,” Jon laughs, shoving at him. 

*

Jon goes to the doctor just before the start of camp. He’ll have a team physical when he reports, but visiting a 47 specialist is a task he’s avoided since he was 18. Dr. Voight is an omega female in her late fifties with brusque hands who he’s been going to since he was six. She checks him out, asks him about his brother with her fingers poking around inside him, and tells him he could use a little more sleep. She doesn’t guilt him for avoiding her, which is what he really worried about. 

“So your heat started in July?” she asks, once he’s got his jeans back on. 

Jon blushes and clears his throat. His mom had been standing in the room when he’d called to make the appointment, forcing him to lie when Dr. Voight’s office assistant asked what it was regarding. 

“Ah, a little earlier. It happens, biology doesn’t wait for the right moment,” she says with a smile, reaching out to pat his knee. “How frequent is it?”

“Been once a month since it started.”

“That’s normal,” she explains. “Don’t be alarmed if it drops off at the start of the season. You’re a professional athlete with low bodyfat, so there’s a good chance that once you start playing again it’ll disrupt GnRH. Those are the hormones that regulate heat. Heat is energy expensive, and it’s very easy to alter your cycle if you’re burning almost as many calories as you consume. I suspect the amount of exercise you get is partially responsible for your late onset.” 

“That doesn’t sound like such a bad thing,” he mumbles, looking down at his hands. 

“A lot of people who come into my office say just the same thing. But if you go more than 90 days, you should come back in so we can check you out, make sure that something else isn’t going on.” 

Jon blows out a breath and then nods. 

“Other than that, if you’re participating in any form of anal intercourse you’ll need to be careful. There is always a risk of perforation or tearing. If you experience unusual dryness, you can use an over-the-counter lubricant, or we can discuss some hormonal options.” 

Jon knows he’s bright red. It’s like having his grandmother give him the sex talk. At least he knows there isn’t a problem with _that_. He’d been sore for a few days after the first time, but he distinctly remembers being so wet he was sloppy with it. It wasn’t quite so intense following that, not more than he usually experiences during arousal, so he assumes that much slick must be a First Night thing. He could ask her, but the thought of opening his mouth and demanding to know why he was so wet for Patrick Kane is mortifying. 

“There there, dear,” she says, patting his knee again. “All done.” 

He leaves feeling better. If playing hockey shuts down his heat, at least that’s one less thing to worry about being near Patrick. 

*

It _is_ a worry. Patrick spent his summer allegedly knee-deep in booze and blondes, partying all over Western New York, but he’s still sharp when the trainers put them through a battery of tests, still grinning around his gum, looking tan and healthy. 

“Hey, man,” he says when he sees Jon. It sucked not to talk to him all summer long, and they’d barely acknowledged each other at Sharpy’s wedding. Patrick had spent so much of it drunk and singing with the band while Jon chilled with Seabs and Duncs and their girlfriends that he could almost pretend the yawning silence wasn’t out of the ordinary. Almost. They’re together so often during the season that it had very nearly felt like a part of Jon was missing. 

Patrick gives him a quick hug, and suddenly he’s swamped with the memory of Patrick pressing his face into Jon’s throat, so close his eyelashes trailed over Jon’s skin. 

Arousal buzzes in Jon’s blood, beating at his temples, wetting his ass. Jon pulls back quickly, trying to put some distance between them. This isn’t his heat creeping up on him. That’s a different sensation altogether. This time there’s no all-consuming omnipresent need to fuck. Jon just wants him. 

Fuck. 

Is this what happens when you spend time with alphas you’ve gone through heat-throes with? He never saw any of the other three again so he has no basis for comparison. Patrick’s face is a still, inscrutable mask. Impossible to read. Jon’s suddenly swamped with bitter embarrassment. Patrick’s had heat sex before. He’s probably used to this. 

Jon clears his throat and drops his eyes. “Kitchen said he wanted to talk to me, go over some stuff. I’m going to—” 

“Yeah,” Patrick replies. “Yeah. Of course.” 

Jon’s achingly aware of him the rest of the day—the smell of Patrick’s sweat thick in his nostrils, the arresting economical movements of his powerful body as he’s going through strength exercises. At one point, caught up in watching him, Jon bashes his arm into the skating treadmill, cursing so fervently everybody looks up to stare at him. 

He escapes out into the hall outside the weight room for a breath of air, tipping his head against the wall. The door bangs open and he straightens up in a hurry, only to find Patrick standing with his hand on the door, eyes wide. 

“I—” Jon starts to say he’s leaving, only to cut himself off, uncertain. 

Later he won’t be able to recall who made the first move, all he knows is that they end up shoved together in the hallway supply closet, Jon’s spine pressed back against shelves full of cleaning products, his hands sunk into the curls at Patrick’s nape, desperately kissing him. He’s so wet his cheeks feel slick and when Patrick tugs his shorts down around his knees, he can smell it. 

“Fuck, Jonny,” Patrick breathes when he pulls back, his lips red and swollen, high color in his cheeks. 

He can’t help the pathetic little mewl that escapes past his lips when Patrick spits on two fingers and gets a spread-fingered palm on his cheeks, holding him open as he sinks them inside him. Jon finds himself rising up on the balls of his feet, trying to rock back into it. 

“Please,” Jon says, not even really sure what he’s asking for as Patrick runs first his lips and then his teeth along his throat. He drops his hand, groping for Patrick’s cock, groaning when he finds it already thick and hard behind the thin fabric of his shorts. Jon’s mouth fills with spit. He wants this, god he wants this. 

Patrick grunts, rolling his hips against the pressure of Jon’s palm, teeth turning more insistent as Jon drags his fingers along the shape of him, blowing out a breath when Jon gets to the base of his cock and the bulge of his knot. 

Patrick twists his wrist just so, rubbing across that secret part of him that lights up everything inside, even as he feels a hot welling of shame. He should stop Patrick. He keeps thinking about the people out in the hall walking right by. He’s not in heat. It was one thing to let a dude fuck him to get through that, another thing entirely to do it for fun. This shouldn’t be happening. And if they’re found...

Patrick mutters into the skin of his throat, with another vicious twist of his wrist, “Been thinking about you on my cock the whole damn day.” 

Jon’s so hard, he’s so wet—fuck the people in the hallway. He reaches up to the shelves above his head, hauling himself off the ground so that Patrick can work his shorts down over his thighs. He doesn’t have the first idea how they’re even going to do this, but Patrick’s got it figured out, slinging Jon’s thighs over his hips and shoving his own shorts down. Patrick moves one palm under Jon’s ass, tilting his hips up as he bumps his cock up against Jon’s hole, relying on Jon to hold himself up. 

He gets his cock in on a single thrust that makes Jon bite at his lip to stopper up a moan, dropping his head back onto the shelf behind him as he’s suddenly filled to the hilt. Patrick’s knot hasn’t swelled up much, and it won’t without heat to bring on the tie, but the curve of it still nudges up against Jon’s prostate, deep as he is inside. Grabbing handfuls of Jon’s ass, Patrick doesn’t wait for permission to start moving, seemingly as single-minded as Jon is. The pace he sets has Jon’s back thumping against the shelves, but he clenches his hands tighter on the cheap particle board, still holding himself up for Patrick’s thrusts. 

They’re being noisy, but the buzzing of the ventilation is loud in here—a steady droning whir that he hopes is enough to cover up the rhythmic banging and the obscene slap of Patrick’s hips meeting his ass. The frisson of fear at being discovered does nothing to lessen his want. He can barely think past the forceful drive of Patrick’s hips. He couldn’t believe it the first time they fucked, and he can’t believe it now. This is Patrick inside him, his cock making space inside Jon’s body, Patrick who’s alternating muttering curses into his throat and telling Jon that he feels ‘so good, baby’ like he’s some chick Patrick picked up. 

His wrist flexors are starting to burn, fingers sliding sweaty on the shelf when Patrick hauls up more of his weight, changing the angle in a way that makes Jon let out a strangled cry. Patrick’s cockhead slams into that spot with every stroke inside and Jon pants weakly, head lolling against the shelf. 

“Can you come this way?” Patrick asks, still grinding in-in-in so deep that Jon trembles. 

“Wh-what?” Jon asks. Can he orgasm? Just from this? Is it even possible? It feels good. It’d felt good with the other guy also, but that was just foreplay. His dick has always been the main event. 

“I bet you can,” Patrick says, nibbling at his ear and then getting his hips going even harder, all angled at that gland inside. 

Jon’s stomach swoops. It goes from not enough to something pretty fast, Jon taking in great big gasps of air every time Patrick fucks back in. He’s biting at his lips savagely now, trying so hard to keep all the sounds that want to tear out of his throat inside. He only partially succeeds, but he doesn’t have another spare thought for it because yeah, he is 100% going to come from this. 

When it happens it still takes him by surprise, every muscle locking up so tense he stops breathing. Patrick keeps it up the whole time, making Jon briefly hysterically wonder what it would be like to have the intense steady pressure of his knot snugged up tight inside him, all full because of the tie. To remember it this time. 

He goes a little limp afterwards, making Patrick hoist even more of his weight as he continues to pound him back against the wall. Jon’s so sensitive now he almost doesn’t think he can take it. 

“F-fuck,” he stutters out, tightening his grip on the shelf with renewed vigor. 

Freed up from Jon’s weight, Patrick slings his arms under Jon’s knees, pushing his legs back to his chest. “Almost there,” he chokes out. 

Right when Jon hits his limit, Patrick comes, biting at his shoulder, and Jon can’t help the strangled sound he makes in the back of his throat when he feels the hot spill of it inside. 

Squeezing his eyes shut, he exhales slowly when Patrick pulls out and lets go of Jon’s legs so he can let them drop to the floor. He stays slumped against Jon for a moment, before finally backing up to give Jon space. Jon’s hands ache when he lets go of the shelves, palms creased by the edges of the wood. He’s instantly aware of all of the other little hurts, the soreness in his ass and the tender parts of his back, but now that he isn’t thinking with his dick, the most pressing thing is the sick shame in his gut. 

He knows better than this. He doesn’t understand why he’s suddenly losing his fucking mind around an alpha, but he doesn’t like it. 

“So, uh…” Patrick says, hauling his shorts back up and kicking Jon’s back over to him. 

“I’m sorry,” Jon replies, mouth dry and head swimming. “I shouldn’t have done that.” 

Patrick looks blank again. Probably thinking the exact same things Jon is: what the fuck did they think they were doing? 

He turns away from Jon, blowing out a breath. “I gotta catch up with Sharpy about something,” he says and then leaves the closet without a backward glance. 

Jon thunks his head back against the shelves, fighting a stupid overwhelming urge not to cry. All Jon’s ever cared about is control, and now it’s fled him entirely. 

*

He looks it up later, to see if coming from prostate stimulation is some kind of special omega thing, but he’s embarrassed to find out it isn’t. Aside from the vestigial bartholin’s gland, his interior anatomy isn’t much different from a null male’s. Jon falling apart on Patrick’s dick is all a quirk of his own. 

Jon wishes fiercely that he was normal. That he didn’t have these urges. That he could just be a good omega and do what he’s expected to do. He’s been wishing for that shit a long time though, and it’s never got him anywhere. 

Let it go, he tells himself. Let it go, he’s got bigger fish to fry. 

He worries that it’ll be weird and tense on the road—he can barely think of Patrick without remembering how his cock felt thrust up inside and then getting angry at himself for being so fucking stupid. He avoids their room the night before their first road game, hanging out late with Seabs and Duncs instead, watching shitty TV. 

Patrick calls him on it when he finally returns. “Don’t get the wrong idea, Tazer,” he says, rolling his eyes when he sees Jon’s face. “You’re being weird. It was just a hookup.” 

Jon’s chest goes a little tight. Patrick’s right of course. It was just a hookup. One motivated by stupid biology at that, but it didn’t feel that way when it was happening. Ridiculous to be hurt by it, he knows, because that was probably just hormones making him all crazy. 

Jon nods. “No, I know—this is—” He seizes on the first excuse that comes to mind. “This is all new to me.” 

Patrick nods looking back at his phone. “I guess if I’m the only alpha you’ve ever been with it makes sense that things would be a little strange.” 

Jon blinks at him. “You’re not. I went into heat three times over the summer.” 

Jon doesn’t think he’s imagining the way Patrick stiffens up before getting up off his bed, brushing his hands brusquely down the front of his pant legs and bending down to rummage around in his suitcase. Jon has no idea why his choice not to tell Patrick that would bother him at all. Maybe Jon would’ve told him earlier if things were different, but they’d decided space was best this summer. 

“Oh, okay, did your family buy the whole ‘First Night’ thing?” Patrick says without looking up. 

Jon shrugs. “It was like you said, how would they know?” 

“Was it okay?” Patrick asks, tone casual like he doesn’t really care about the answer, and Jon doesn’t know why it sets his teeth on edge. It’s a perfectly acceptable question. He’d even wanted to talk to Patrick about it earlier in the summer when it happened. Now though, he really doesn’t want Patrick to know how much Jon wished he was with him instead. 

Jon blows out a breath. “I don’t really remember very much from when we—the first time,” Jon says, “but honestly—” he cuts himself off and shakes his head. He wants to say it was great, but he doesn’t know how to lie about this. “I felt like I was sick the whole way through the last couple times.” 

He’s about to ask if the other omegas Patrick’s been with have felt that same oppressive sense of being unwell, when Patrick breezily says, “Oh, huh.” He looks distracted, like he’s not even interested in the conversation, and Jon suddenly feels more awkward than ever. “I’m gonna—” he waves his hand at the bathroom and mimes brushing his teeth.

“Right, yeah, go,” Jon says, collapsing back on the bed. 

*

Heat hits unexpected and uncomfortable a week later. He’s not due and shouldn’t be having heat at all according to the doctor. He can’t help feeling betrayed by his body, that it failed to meet his expectations yet again. Of course his next feeling is vaguely hysterical resignation. He could go out and find someone, but the thought of being recognized, or of being taken advantage of in this state looms large in his mind. He was fine the last few times, but there are horror stories of out-of-control omegas, and he doesn’t need the city of Chicago that far into his business. Best to weather this himself. 

The first few hours are fine. It’s like the rising itch of a mosquito bite, annoying, pricking at his consciousness, but not otherwise unbearable. He drinks water, puts himself through a grueling workout in his weight room, and when that’s done, he jerks off. For a moment he’s lulled into thinking that it’s manageable, but gradually it develops into the aching heat of a sunburn, scorching his skin, building and building until it feels like he’s on fire. Jacking off isn’t even enough to make him come anymore. It’s agony, thrashing about in his sheets, so wet his thighs are slicking together, body aching for the calming scent of an alpha. He was so goddamn foolish to think he could do this and now he’s much too far gone to find someone to help him take care of it. 

Finally, desperate, Jon turns all the taps in his shower on cold and then huddles under the spray. He doesn’t know how much time passes, him leaning up against the tile, water running down his body. The aching need hasn’t gone away. It hurts, but the cold water at least dulls the burning under his skin, turns it down into something bearable. Just a few more hours, just a few more hours. He can do this. 

Patrick’s voice intrudes distantly through his stupor. “Jonny, you left your phone—” he calls, voice getting louder as he gets closer. Jon knows he should respond, tell Patrick to turn around and get out, but he doesn’t remember how to put words together when Patrick bursts into the bathroom, shouting, “Jonny, man, what the fuck are you doing?” 

Just the scent of him, cutting through the torrent of water calms something inside him. 

Patrick bolts to the shower, voice strangely frantic. “Your lips are blue,” he cries, his hands on Jon’s shoulders. “What are you even thinking?” 

Jon sobs, head lolling back against the tile. Water is slicked through Patrick’s hair, beading on his eyelashes and plastering his shirt to his chest. He looks gorgeous, Jon thinks hazily. When Patrick tries to pull him to his feet, the water pouring down around them, he remembers enough to struggle. He has to stay here, if he doesn’t quench the flames roaring through him he might die, immolated by his own body. 

“Hurts,” he moans. “Nobody to help me.” 

Patrick kisses him, his hands too tight on his shoulders, pinning Jon up against the side of the shower wall. “Shh, shh, I’ll help you, babe,” he says when he pulls back. “I’ll help you.” 

Jon lets himself be turned around, hot front pressed to the cold tile, shaking like a leaf from desperation. When Patrick gets his cock inside him, Jon sobs in relief. Patrick’s palm rests on the tile just above Jon’s shoulder, bracing himself as he thrusts inside Jon, hips snapping up and in with a precision that has him wailing. It feels so good after so many hours of the bad that Jon doesn’t last long at all, coming with his cock caught between his body and the cool tile, Patrick still pounding steadily into him. 

Patrick’s talking, Jon realizes, muttered imprecations about how stupid Jon is, how foolish, in between soft praise for how good Jon feels around his cock, how much better it’s going to be when he’s got him knotted, stuffed full. Jon’s palm comes down over Patrick’s on the tile, fingers threading between Patrick’s, holding on tight, as Patrick fucks him just shy of vicious. 

Jon comes again, kicked over into orgasm when Patrick thrusts in one last time, knot swelling up as he finishes thick and deep inside Jon’s ass. 

It lasts him for a little bit, but not long enough for them to make it out of the bathroom. The next time happens on the floor outside the tub, laid out on the scratchy bathmat, Jon’s legs locked around the small of Patrick’s back, holding onto Patrick for dear life. It feels better than anything else in his life ever has, Jon’s certain. He wonders abstractly why he would ever deny himself this. With Patrick’s lips brushing over his throat and the thick width of his knot filling Jon up just the way he needs, it seems like sheer lunacy. 

Everything starts to blur after that, discrete occurrences running together until he’s lost track of how many times Patrick’s mated him. At least once more in the bathroom he thinks, again in the kitchen when Jon decides they both need to drink some fluids and get some food down, over and over in his bed, until his sheets are thoroughly destroyed, drenched in the scent of them both. 

At some point he slides into a troubled dreamless sleep, thoroughly exhausted, the fire beneath his skin banked back to embers, but when he wakes up, Patrick’s arm curled around his waist, his soft breaths brushing over the back of his neck, it roars back to life. 

“You awake?” Patrick croaks sleepily behind him. 

“Ugh,” Jon says. He’s woozy and disoriented, but his head isn’t up in the sky anymore. He doesn’t know if being this present, firmly rooted to the ground, rather than lost in a muddle of sounds and sensations is preferable. He’d certainly like to skip the embarrassment he’s feeling now, even if it’s layered over with the strong desire to fuck. “Damn it.” 

“It hasn’t passed,” Patrick says unnecessarily. 

Jon snorts and turns over to face him, his erection insistent between them. Jon’s too far gone to feel self-conscious about his need to come, so he unashamedly grinds himself against the sheets, letting out a small moan. “I know, genius.” 

Patrick rubs his face into the pillow with a groan and then pushes himself upright. “K, just let me piss and get some water.” 

Jon doesn’t know why that statement is the embarrassing cherry on top of a mortifying sundae, but he’s abruptly horrified that he put Patrick in this situation. 

“Sorry,” he says softly when Patrick crawls back into the bed, unselfconscious about his nakedness. There’s a bite mark on his shoulder where Jon sunk his teeth in the second time Patrick knotted him, and another one on his chest that Jon doesn’t remember giving him. 

Patrick pauses, blue eyes piercing as he looks down at Jon. He looks unsure of what to say which only makes Jon feel worse. 

“Hey,” Patrick replies with a laissez-faire shrug of his shoulders. “It happens. Sucks to go through this by yourself.” 

It’s hard having this conversation over the insistent drumbeat pounding in his head to have sex now, now, now, and Jon is grateful that Patrick doesn’t hate him, but he feels strangely disappointed. He didn’t even realize that he was hoping Patrick might’ve enjoyed it and wanted it as much as Jon did until this moment. It’s so stupid—this is just a helping hand as it were, not some kind of relationship. But the inside of his head is all fucked up, biological impulses overriding good sense. He’s sure he won’t feel all needy and stupid when it’s over. 

Nevertheless he turns his head away so he doesn’t have to see Patrick’s sympathetic face any longer, taking a moment to move his hips, the friction on his cock a desire he can’t stopper up. He really does need to go again and soon. Blowing out a breath, he reaches back behind him to trace his fingers over his hole, hissing when it’s sore and hot to the touch. 

“You okay?” Patrick asks. 

Jon groans and shakes his head. This is the worst reality check he’s ever received. “I don’t think—” he’s unsure how to say that he doesn’t think he can take Patrick’s dick again without giving too much away. He finally settles with, “I don’t think I can go again.” 

“But you want to?” Patrick asks. 

Jon groans again and squeezes his eyes shut. “Want is not really the right word. Need it, more like.” 

“You just need to come, right? And—and to be touching uh...me?” Patrick asks tentatively. 

Jon bites at his lip even has he gets his hand around his cock, squeezing at it comfortingly. It doesn’t seem quite right to ask if Patrick is interested in giving him a handjob or a blowjob—what would Patrick even get out of that? 

“You could uh…” Patrick stops and swallows. “You could fuck me?” 

Jon lifts his head, surprised that Patrick would be willing to offer. “Patrick, it’s not—look, I can deal.” He knows he must have a truly stupid expression on his face right now.

“No, it’s—it’s okay, man,” Patrick replies. “I want you t—” he cuts himself off looking discombobulated. “I want this to go okay for you.” 

Jon’s laugh is edged with an incipient whine as he tightens his hand on his dick again. “That’s offering a lot, Peeks. You don’t even—” sleep with guys, Jon stops himself before he says that out loud, because he’s had Patrick’s cock up his ass for the better part of the last twelve hours. 

Patrick raises a brow at him. “Don’t pretend you don’t want it.” Jon’s breath catches in his chest. Jesus, did he say something yesterday in the throes of being dicked for his life? He does want it. He wants it to distraction. But Patrick puts that worry to rest when he follows it up with, “The state you’re in.” 

“I—” Jon’s voice dies in his throat. He doesn’t have enough energy to pretend that the offer hasn’t got his pulse speed up and his chest go a little tight just from picturing it. “Yeah.” 

Patrick looks away and shrugs. “So I’m offering.” 

“Okay,” Jon replies tentatively. “Okay.” 

The problem with this plan is that Jon needs an orgasm so bad he’s shaking and wired with it. He should’ve had Patrick prep himself, because leaning over him and slowly working his fingers in and out so that Patrick can accommodate him is eating up the last of his willpower. Staring at his chewed red lips, he can’t help wanting to bend in to kiss Patrick’s gasping mouth, even if this is just supposed to be a favor between friends. Patrick seems okay with the butt stuff at least. 

When Jon uses his own slick to ease the way, he tips his head back on the pillows and hisses out between his teeth, “Oh fuck.” 

Jon probably has lube somewhere, but this had seemed faster and easier, and also, he thinks shamefully, hotter. 

“Okay?” Jon checks in, tearing his eyes away from where he’s gotten stuck watching Patrick’s hole clenching at his knuckles. Jon may be an omega, but he’s still a man, with the same near universal obsession with putting his dick in things. He’s sure he’s going to emasculate himself as soon as he gets inside Patrick. 

Patrick’s got his arm across his face so Jon can’t read his face, but he nods briefly. 

“I’m sorry,” Jon says. “I could probably do this better if I wasn’t—” 

Patrick blows out a breath. “You’re fine, man.” 

“Okay,” Jon replies, hoping that Patrick isn’t lying to him. He knows that this might not be what Patrick’s into, but he’d really rather not give him the worst sexual experience of his life. 

He’s caught up again, this time in looking at his own wet shining on Patrick’s balls and perineum, when Patrick says, “Maybe just do it?” 

Jon pauses. “Are you s—” 

“Yes, I’m fucking sure,” Patrick huffs out. “C’mon.” 

It’s so much like an argument on the ice that Jon wants to throw up his hands in exasperation. He takes himself in hand, moving into position between Patrick’s thighs. His heat-induced erection throbs as he rubs the blunt head back and forth over Patrick’s hole, watching it clench and relax. He catches Patrick staring down between their bodies also, his teeth sunk into his lower lip. His cheeks are pinked up, and Jon knows he’s half out-of-his-head with heat, but Patrick looks so sexy that Jon’s not sure he would feel any different even without the hormones rushing through him. He’s as wet between his thighs as he ever gets, and he reaches down, back behind his balls, dragging his fingers back up his shaft to get it good and slick. Oh god, he’s dying to get inside Patrick. 

Jon eases his hips forward, slowly pushing inside. Patrick makes a strange choked noise when he’s fully seated that makes Jon’s eyes fly up to his face. “Still good?” 

Patrick lets out a shaky breath that turns into more of a gasp when Jon rolls his hips. 

“I’m—yeah,” Patrick tells him, eyes hooded. His cock is thick and stiff, bobbing against his abs in a way that Jon finds arresting. 

After a few more testing strokes, Jon gives in to the urge to blanket Patrick with his body. When he’s in this state he needs as much contact as he can get. Patrick makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, but he accepts Jon’s weight, widening his thighs around his hips. Patrick’s so tight, a hot sweet pressure that’s nearly overwhelming. Jon knows better than to take Patrick’s erection as a sign of anything. For as long as Jon’s in heat, he’ll stay hard. But the way that Patrick blinks up at him with glassy eyes, lips parted and chest flushed up, makes Jon think he isn’t in this alone. Unconsciously, he stills in surprise when Patrick curls a hand around the nape of his neck and draws him down, keeping him close. 

“Keep going,” Patrick whispers against his ear. 

Jon starts up again, slowly grinding his cock inside. Patrick moans and flexes his hips back against him. And that’s just it for Jon. It snaps the last of his fraying control, and before he knows it, he’s pumping his hips in hard, pulse skyrocketing at the noises Patrick’s making, a soft “unh” every time Jon thrusts back inside. 

“Fuck,” Jon exhales, racing towards that ledge fast until suddenly he’s there, coming swift and inexorable, cock shoved deep in Patrick’s ass. His heat finally breaks between beats of his pounding heart, the sudden cold water sensation of it leaving is a shock to his system. He breathes out, and gets another body blow when he pulls out and sees his come seeping out of Patrick’s hole. 

“Fuck,” Jon repeats. 

Patrick shifts under his gaze, still hard despite Jon’s waning heat, his cheeks red with a flush that looks like embarrassment. He pushes himself up onto his elbows. And Jon doesn’t know what he’s doing, or at least that’s what he’ll say if anybody ever asks later, but he curls his fist tight around Patrick’s shaft, fingertips tightening around his knot as he closes his mouth around the vulnerable wet head of his cock. He’s so thick in Jon’s mouth it’s hard to believe he ever managed to get this cock in his ass. 

Patrick trembles underneath him, chest rising with ragged breaths. His head drops back on his neck as Jon hollows his cheeks around him. 

“Oh goddamn,” Patrick breathes, drawing his lower lip between his teeth, “Shit, yeah, just like that.” 

Jon continues to suck at him, tongue laving at the underside of the head, getting him so wet with spit it slides down the shaft and slicks up the way for his hand. The muscles in Patrick’s belly go tight, dipping and caving right before he comes. Jon lifts his mouth off as he spills all over himself, squeezing his fingers around Patrick’s knot to work more out of him until Patrick groans for him to stop, voice cracked and hoarse, shaking like he’s been undone completely. 

Jon breathes out, a long sigh, licking his lips and swallowing reflexively. He rolls off of Patrick with a wince, everything aches, but at the same time, it feels like every cell in his body is singing. 

Patrick creaks out of bed with another groan, stopping to crack his neck and roll his shoulders. He’s a sweaty disgusting mess, but Jon feels an overwhelming urge to draw him back to the bed and wrap himself around him. He drops his eyes immediately, embarrassed at the mere thought. 

Patrick clears his throat. “So I have uh—my buddies are in town, and I need to go.” 

Jon sits up. “You didn’t miss them because of me did you?” 

Patrick shakes his head, brushing Jon’s worries aside. “No, we weren’t supposed to meet up until tonight.” 

Jon breathes out, suddenly feeling sick and miserable. He feels like he took advantage. Patrick was just being nice, returning his phone. “I’m sorry about this.” 

“Quit it, okay?” Patrick says sharply. “It’s not like having sex is a hardship.” 

Jon’s opening his mouth to say something, anything, when Patrick stretches his arms out over his head and pops his spine, tone returned to normal, he ask, “Do you mind if I use your shower?”

Jon shakes his head weakly, dropping back to the bed that stinks of them, as Patrick disappears into the bathroom.

*

His mother calls him that night as he’s loading his filthy bedding into the washing machine, scolding him for not getting in touch more often. He realizes with a jolt that he hasn’t spoken to his family since before camp. He didn’t mean to, he’s just been busy. They’ve been winning only barely more than they’re losing; they’re basically relearning a new team and a new system, and, as much as he may not like to admit that it’s a big deal, there’s this whole thing with Patrick. 

“I worry about you, Jonathan,” she says. 

“Why?” he says, too sharp, and winces, immediately guilty. 

“Is everything going well with heats?” she asks tentatively. 

Jon looks down at the bedding on spin cycle and swallows. “I haven’t had heat since the summer. The doctor said that with my workout load that wouldn’t be unexpected. She said it was nothing to worry about.” The lie falls out of his mouth as easily as breathing. He used to never lie to his parents, now it feels like he’s doing it all the time. 

“Your father is wondering if maybe you’d be willing to meet with a girl? She’s from a good family, and she has the alpha mutation.” 

Jon blinks. He thought they were done with this for a while. Jon did his duty, and now it’s the season. “When am I supposed to do that? I’m not home in Winnipeg until the summer,” the same sharpness is back in his tone. 

“Well if you don’t have heat, then maybe none of this even matters, right?” his mother asks. 

Jon sighs. “I guess not.”

After she hangs up, he finds himself sitting against the wall in front of the washing machine, wondering what the hell he’s going to tell them. He thinks of his ‘First Night,’ the one in name only, and the revulsion he felt afterwards. He knows he’s making it bigger in his head now than it probably was, but he doesn’t want to go through that again. It’s one thing to choose his partners, and another thing to have them chosen for him. 

Although, it’s not as if his forebrain chose Patrick. Both times that was all instinct. Jon drops his head back the wall with a thump. Instinct—the way mating is supposed to work. 

“Shit,” he announces to his washing machine. It’s time to face it. He went into heat when he shouldn’t, too early, all because of proximity to Patrick. 

What the hell is he going to do about that?

*

October slides into November and the team keeps shakily plodding forward. In the first two weeks they only manage one win against Atlanta and another in OT against the Ducks. It’s not the record Jon wants going into the circus trip. With all the roster changes, this one feels a lot more important than the previous couple had, and they need something to shake up their momentum. 

He and Patrick are fine. It’s so normal that it makes it almost worse for Jon. He feels so dumb. They’ve had two heats together, and all the endorphins from that are probably fucking with his head, and yet still, he perversely wants it to matter to Patrick. As much as it does for Jon. Especially when Patrick’s mere presence can upset the delicate equilibrium of his body. But Jon’s good at tucking his chin to his chest, gritting his teeth, and bearing it, so that’s just what he’ll have to keep doing. 

Their first game of the trip, they pay Edmonton back for the two losses they suffered earlier in the season, only to get destroyed two days later by Calgary. Nobody’s in that good a mood, but Patrick caps it off by leaning up against a wall wet with paint, ruining his game day suit. 

“Who doesn’t put up a fucking sign?” he asks bitterly on the bus, plucking at his stained sleeve. His back’s all streaked up with white paint. He’s irritable and snappish, enough that Sharpy gets up from his seat next to him and comes to sit with Jon, sketching off an ironic salute as he goes. Patrick flips him the finger and Sharpy laughs. 

Jon eyes him warily. “What are you doing here?”

“What’s up, Toes? How you been?” he asks brightly. 

“I’m fine,” Jon says slowly. 

“How’s heat?” Sharpy asks. 

Jon rolls his eyes. “C’mon, man.” 

“I’m just curious! Is it all that it’s cracked up to be?” 

“You mean is it like 47 porn? With omegas begging desperately to get fucked for hours?” 

Sharpy shrugs and nods. 

Jon sighs. “It’s not like the porn, it’s like getting high and being told you have to keep a straight face and visit your grandparents. You know what you’re supposed to be like, what normal is like, but you can’t reach it. You don’t know how to act normal. It’s not—I don’t like it.” 

“You would be the type to compare hours of sex to hanging out with your grandparents,” Sharpy replies. 

“I like hanging out with my grandparents just fine, just not when I’m three sheets to the wind.” 

Patrick says something under his breath a couple of rows up. 

“What’s that, Peeks? You feel differently?” Sharpy calls. 

Patrick freezes like he didn’t realize he’d be heard, before twisting around in his seat. His expression is blank as he says, “Most people like heat just fine.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Jon replies, cheeks heating as the memory of Patrick fucking him up against the shower wall flashes before his eyes. “I’m not _most_ people.” 

“Don’t I know it,” Patrick mutters darkly, shaking his head. 

“Ooh the battle of the sexes,” Sharpy says. 

Jon’s opening his mouth to correct him, when Patrick turns back around, snapping out, “XY-Omega’s not a sex, asshole. What were you doing in 7th grade bio?” 

“Welllll,” Sharpy says, drawing out the word as he looks back and forth between them with a shit-eating grin. “Practical demonstrations?” 

Jon snorts. 

“Seriously, that’s not cool. You should know better than saying that bigoted bullshit.”

“Chill, little man, I didn’t mean anything by it,” Sharpy says raising his hands. He nudges Jon again. “You’re okay right, Jonny?”

Of course he’s fine. He’s used to far worse than Sharpy’s fumbling attempts to understand 47s. He knows Sharpy doesn’t even really mean that statement about Jon’s sex. It was just a flip remark. But Patrick’s staring at Jon with burning eyes like he’s waiting for some kind of response. Jon doesn’t know what Patrick wants. 

“You’re an idiot, but we all knew that,” Jon says, knocking Sharpy in the head with his palm. 

Sharpy squawks indignantly, but Jon ignores him. Patrick turns away with a mutinous expression and Jon’s instantly not looking forward to being back in the hotel room with him when they land in Vancouver. 

Patrick’s mood is just as black as Jon predicted, and he bangs around their room slamming doors and throwing his things, snapping whenever Jon tries to engage him. Jon gives up. He shuts off his light on his side of the hotel room, earbuds in his ears, and pulls the covers up to his chin, hopefully signalling how done with it he is. He doesn’t know what Patrick’s problem is. The game sucked. Sharpy’s comment was stupid, but they are all adults here. Patrick could act like one. 

*

He goes into heat the day they get to LA for their back-to-back with the Kings and the Ducks. He doesn’t know if it’s the combination of being on the road and all of his mixed up feelings for Patrick, but it hits him like a freight train, a sudden unexpected misery. 

“Umm,” Patrick says, standing awkwardly at the bathroom door as Jon puts his head under the sink faucet. “Do you wanna call someone? The team can probably get a service.” 

Jon shudders. He hates himself, but right now he really can’t stomach the thought of fucking anybody besides Patrick. He imprinted on him somehow that first time and now Jon can’t get him out of his head. He cups his hand under the tap, gathering up cool water and taking a long drink. The water is metallic in his mouth, off-putting, but cupping another handful gives him something to do, something to focus on besides the fevered warmth under his skin and the badgering presence of Patrick so close but still out of reach. He can’t ask Patrick to do this again. It’s not fair to either of them. But he tried weathering it alone last time and it was the experience of his nightmares. He’ll have to get somebody. There’s a prickling at the corner of his eyes. 

“Jonny,” Patrick says softly. “It’s alright.” 

“How?” he replies, straightening up from the sink, his voice coming out sharper than he intended. 

“I know you hate heat,” Patrick says, “but whoever the team gets will know what they’re doing.” 

Jon stares at him and Patrick clears his throat and tugs at his collar. For the first time Jon realizes he’s sweating, cheeks pink, just as affected as he is. He feels instantly worse. 

“I’m sorry,” he says weakly, leaning back against the sink. “I don’t mean to be such an inconvenience.” 

Patrick laughs, but it sounds forced. “You can’t help it. Do you want me to call for you?” 

Revulsion grows in his belly, competing with the rising tide of arousal, making him sick. Jon makes a sound low in his throat, shutting his eyes. “I don’t think I can,” he says. 

“Is it that bad?” Patrick says softly, sounding wounded. 

“Not with you,” Jon blurts out and then immediately wants to die of embarrassment. He just doesn’t want Patrick to think he’d done a bad job. “I—I don’t know them—” he stutters out, trying to cover for himself. “But I know you don’t want—” 

Suddenly Patrick’s in his space, hands on his shoulders, lips slanting across Jon’s own and Jon moans, unable to keep from arching into him, frustrated but divorced from all the voices in his head telling him to stop this immediately, that Patrick has just been in the wrong place at the wrong time and he’s not actually interested. 

“It’s better with me because you know me?” Patrick asks when he pulls back, cupping his cheeks. Jon nods weakly. It’s a believable enough excuse and certainly better than telling Patrick he’s more and more certain he wants Patrick for a mate. Patrick starts stripping off his sport coat and Jon blinks at him dully, the haze of heat making his brain slow and stupid. 

“Hey,” Patrick says, “heat is no hardship for me.” The smile he gives Jon is sinful. “Wanna see how quick we can get it to break?” 

*

It breaks at 3 am, quicker at least than the last time, probably because they started just at the beginning swell of it. 

“Fuck I’m hungry,” Patrick says afterwards, lying sacked out next to Jon in his bed. “Does this place have 24-hour room-service?” 

Jon rolls over in bed, reaching for the hotel guide on the nightstand. He pages through it, finding the room-service menu. “Yeah,” he tells Patrick, voice hoarse, “but none of this shit is on your diet.” 

“Give it here,” Patrick says, holding out his hand for the menu. Jon dutifully hands it over. “They serve breakfast all day? Oh fuck yes.” Patrick swings himself up off the bed, a little unsteady on his legs to call the front desk and place his order. “You want eggs?” he asks leaning back against the desk they’ve provided, careless in his nakedness. There are red streaks down his back and over his buttocks from Jon’s blunt nails and more bites up his neck. Patrick thumbs carelessly at a bruise. Jon rolls over to hide his face in the pillows. He doesn’t remember any other omega marking Patrick up like this. 

Patrick puts in the order for room service and then comes back and lies down on the bed besides Jon with a throat-flexing yawn. He catches Jon staring and turns over onto his side, lips resolving into that sparkling smile Jon knows so well. 

“Food should be here in 15,” he says, sleepily. 

Jon is hit with a sudden overwhelming rush of feeling. It swells up around his heart, threatening to choke him. God, he fell so fucking hard for Patrick somewhere while he wasn’t looking. It hurts almost as much as it feels wonderful. If he doesn’t do something, anything _right now_ he worries about what he’ll say, what he’ll give away. They’ve been fucking for hours, the heat’s passed, but after years spent in hotels with him, he knows enough about Patrick’s general incipient horniness. He thinks as he rolls onto Patrick and then slides down the bed, that 15 minutes sounds like as good a challenge as any. 

“What are you—” Patrick starts, but then cuts himself off when Jon closes his lips around the head of Patrick’s dick, sucking hard. It firms up quickly in his mouth, heavy on his tongue, as he strokes his palms up and down Patrick’s tensed thighs. He’s only done this once before, but the entire world knows how easy Patrick Kane is for head. 

“The room service,” Patrick says hoarsely, even as he groans and drops his head back in a lovely arch. Jon wraps his fist around Patrick’s cock, giving it a stroke as it thickens to full hardness, spreading his lips wide. He doesn’t even try to take Patrick deep, just keeps the wet pressure of his lips and tongue on the head, and lets his hand do the rest, gently massaging the knot that only minutes ago was hammering his prostate. 

Patrick shifts restlessly beneath him, fingertips drawing rents in the sheets, as Jon swirls his tongue over the head of Patrick’s cock and then slides him back further into his mouth. 

“Can’t believe you’re doing this for me again,” he says. Jon hums around him and bobs his head a little deeper, just brushing his soft palate, Patrick’s taste and scent invading every one of his senses until he’s drowning in it. He keeps it up with half an eye on the clock, internally triumphant as Patrick starts rocking up a little into his mouth. Five minutes to spare.

“I’m gonna—” Patrick says, and before Jon can decide one way or the other he says, “Fuck, baby, will you swallow?” 

Jon’s eyes fly upward, caught off guard, as Patrick comes, chest heaving, crying out. He doesn’t pull off and Patrick watches him like he can’t look away as he swallows it down. 

Afterwards, Patrick looks like he’s going to say something, but he’s interrupted by the room service arriving early and Jon goes to the bathroom to rinse out his mouth and brush his teeth, while Patrick rushes to pull on pants so that he can look halfway decent when he answers the door. He finally catches sight of himself in the mirror of the sink and has to pause. He’s not all marked up the way Patrick is with bites and the tracks of his fingernails, but Patrick had liberally smeared him with his come and now it’s flaking off his skin. Jon should really take a shower. It’s disgusting. Instead, he stands there for a moment just taking it in. He’s so fucked. 

*

It’s sort of inevitable really, when Jon finds out. Like he was just waiting for the other shoe to drop all along. 

Her name is Grace. One day she’s just there waiting with all the other WAGs at the end of a game, ready to take Patrick home. Patrick smiles when he sees her, and gives her a kiss, and when the other guys start taunting him he flicks them all off with a great big grin that makes her laugh. He can tell with one look that she’s another omega. And that—well that stings. Although he doesn’t know what else he could’ve expected. This was always what Patrick was going to do, the same path that Jon was eventually going to have to tread himself or risk deeply infuriating his family. 

It’s not that he thought the heat sex meant anything to Patrick. He’d been under no illusions in that regard—that had always just been a means to an end and they’d both been perfectly clear on that. But he’d be lying to himself if it didn’t hurt. And he feels ridiculous for the pain expanding outward in his chest, burning up all the air in his lungs, but it doesn’t stop it from growing. 

“Tazer, you alright?” Seabs asks and it sounds like it’s coming through water as he watches Patrick walk down the tunnel, arm and arm with this girl. 

The bigger deal maybe is that Patrick never even bothered to tell him he was seeing somebody, let alone seriously. Somewhere between winning the cup and fucking the last time Jonny had heat, they stopped being friends. It makes Jonny ache. 

“Yeah of course,” he finds himself saying dully, summoning up a smile that’s barely more than a grimace. He _did_ know something like this was coming, he reminds himself. 

It _is_ kind of a surprise to see just how serious Patrick is about Grace though. Even Sharpy remarks on it after he does a WGN interview and takes her along, effectively declaring himself off the market to all of Chicago. They spend Christmas together, sending the stupid photos around to everybody—Patrick and Grace and all his sisters smiling brightly in front of the window in his apartment, the zealously-decorated Christmas tree all lit up. It feels like a knife stuck straight in Jon’s chest even though he’d been enjoying Christmas just fine with his own family until the moment the text came in. 

It seems pointed somehow. But Jon knows that’s crazy. He’s just reading motive where this none, trying to ascribe feelings to Patrick that he doesn’t have. He needs to give that up. 

*

Jon meets Gabi in mid-January when he goes in to the dealership looking to buy a new car. She’s got the usual 46—Jonny can tell instantly—but she has a wonderful laugh. He walks out with the keys to a new Mercedes and her number. 

She tells him on their first date that she’s a null from an entirely 47 family, like his aunt. “I know there can’t be anything serious between us,” she says, “and that’s cool, I’m going to Europe on a six month backpacking tour with my best friend, and having a boyfriend doesn’t really fit into that.” 

“Don’t buy into that cross-mutation stuff, huh?” he says with a laugh over his beer. 

“If it works for people in the long term,” she says quickly, “that’s great for them, but it sucks enough that my siblings and parents are all gonna have to outlast me. Seems shitty to do that to a husband and kids.” 

Jon nods. It’s no different than what Patrick had said years ago. 

“Doesn’t mean we still can’t have fun though,” she replies, “I mean, heat, whew! It’s like the only time it’s hard to keep up with a guy over the age of 20 in bed.” 

The way she says it sounds like the voice of experience. “You’ve been with a male omega?” 

She gives him a wicked grin. “Almost everybody I knew was a 47 until I came to Chicago. Who the hell else was I going to sleep with?” 

They keep it casual. She’s somebody to go out to the movies with or the occasional day trip on his off days. Nevertheless, he still gets her chocolate on Valentine's Day after he walks right by a display on his way out of the airport coming back from Phoenix. It pays off when she wakes him up the next morning with a blowjob. The sex is good. He’d become kind of a monk since last June, confining his encounters to heat, save that one abberance with Patrick during camp, it’s nice to have sex that’s not biologically motivated again. He didn’t tell her that it had been a while, because he didn’t need her to know how pathetic he was, how hung up he’d become on Patrick without even realizing it, but they didn’t have those kinds of conversations anyway. 

*

“Your girl is hot,” Patrick says, in the locker room gearing down after skate. 

Jon looks over at him, brow raised in the midst of peeling off his own UnderArmour. They’ve been okay these last couple of months. It’s not strained between them—they can’t afford that between the team and their rooming assignment, but it has been a little remote. Patrick choosing to go out to lunch with other guys after skate, or leaving his headphones in when they’re alone. 

Patrick shrugs. “Seabsie showed me a picture. How come you never said anything?” 

Jon snorts. “How come you never said anything about Grace?” 

Patrick unexpectedly colors up. “Forget it, man,” he says and starts yanking on the laces of his skates. 

Jon feels oddly driven to explain anyway. “I didn’t say anything because she’s not ‘my’ girl. There’s nothing to say. It’s just casual. She’s leaving for Europe this summer.” 

“Seabs said she was a null,” Patrick says. 

“Like I said, not serious,” Jon replied. 

Patrick says softly, “I didn’t think you wanted an alpha.” 

Jon clenches his teeth, suddenly furious. “Things change,” he bites out. “And why didn’t _you_ tell me about Grace?” 

Patrick blows out a breath and then looks around the locker room to see if anybody is close by. Everybody else seems to be wrapped up in conversations of their own. 

“Because I didn’t want to make things awkward for you!” he says finally. 

“You didn’t want to make things awkward for me?” Jon replies incredulously, a touch too loud. 

Patrick shushes him, eyes darting around, before he says, “I met her just before your last heat. I didn’t want you to think that you’d made me cheat on her or anything.”

“Oh god.” Jon’s eyes drop to the floor as his hands fall uselessly to his sides. It hadn’t even occurred to him. He feels sick. 

“No!” Patrick hisses. “Jonny, listen, she and I weren’t exclusive at that point, we’d only been on a few dates. I wanted—I was glad to—you needed help.” 

Jon springs up off of the bench. “We can’t have this conversation here.” 

He leaves Patrick behind to bolt into the showers. 

He shoves their talk down, and that night, when he gets on the ice doesn’t think about anything beyond the next shift, the next goal, the next period. They don’t play their best game. After the first goal that Sharpy scores off of his feed, they’re weirdly out of synch as a line. It’s not what leads to the shortie Pittsburgh scores or the failed attempt to clear that ties it up, but it certainly doesn’t help during their scoreless OT. He can’t think of anything to say though to make it better, the words that he would reach for to try and motivate his team at this moment, all he hears echoing over and over in his head is _You needed help._ Like it was exactly as much the chore Patrick had claimed it wasn’t. He’s functioning so far into autopilot that when he goes out first on the shoot-out, he shoots it right into Fleury’s glove like that’s where it’s supposed to be. Crow slams the door shut on Pittsburgh though, so when Patrick finally gets his own shot in that’s the win. 

He catches Jon’s eyes afterwards, but Jon looks away, his earlier horror at Patrick’s stuttered revelation welling back up in him, inexorable as the sun rising. He wants Patrick so damn badly, and he’d been so grateful that Patrick had been willing to weather his heat with him, eager even. He’d thought that maybe they’d been heading somewhere, and while the sudden appearance of Grace had pretty well ended that half-crazed fantasy, he hadn’t realized he’d been suborning somebody in a relationship. He’s disgusted at himself. 

*

He’s woken up by the buzzer going off on his apartment door repeatedly. 

“What the fuck is this?” he demands when he hauls it open, blinking into the bright light of the hallway in only boxers and a t-shirt and finds Patrick standing there with his hands shoved into his pockets. 

“Did I wake you?” Patrick says, taking in his rumpled appearance with a hint of remorse. 

“Obviously,” Jon replies. “What do you want?” 

“Can I come in?” 

Jon stares at him for a long moment, Patrick’s wide blue eyes, the way he keeps worrying his lower lip. 

“Christ, okay,” he says, stepping away from the door and turning back into his apartment, he flicks the light on in the kitchen and goes to the sink to pour himself a glass of water. 

“I think you got the wrong idea,” Patrick says to his back. 

Jon leans back against the kitchen counter, and shrugs dully. “How do you figure?” 

“I know you hate heat, but it’s not like that for me. If you want to fuck, Jonny, then I’m glad I could do that for you. Heat is awesome. I really, really wish it felt like that for you.” 

Jon has to turn away so that Patrick can’t see his face, the horrible pain writ large there, because it does feel that way with Patrick. He wonders now if he’d had his actual first night with that girl as planned, if he’d never known what it was like to be with Patrick, if he hadn’t found a mate on his first try, that maybe every time with anybody else wouldn’t have been so awful. Too late to know. He can’t go back, and he’s going to have to live with it, because Patrick isn’t his. 

“I need you to know that you didn’t make me do anything.” 

Jon snorts and then Patrick is there, his winter-cold fingers cupping Jon’s cheek. “Hey, no,” he says. 

Jon shuts his eyes and swallows in a deep breath, fighting the sudden rising urge to cry. 

“Jonny,” Patrick says softly, gently tugging Jonny’s head down so he can press their foreheads together. 

“Don’t,” Jon says, weak and watery, but when Patrick steps in even closer, pressing him back against the kitchen counter, it’s Jon who brushes their lips together, drawing a lovely sigh out of Patrick’s mouth. Kissing Patrick is like taking a hit, charging his blood, making him dizzy. It’s so easy to fall into it, to draw Patrick in tighter, belly tightening as he slicks his underwear. 

Jon gasps and shoves him away, turning his back to Patrick quickly so that he can’t see his face. 

“I—” Patrick starts, but Jon doesn’t care what he has to say. He doesn’t want Patrick’s apologies or his attempts to make Jon feel better about his feelings. He knows where this goes and it’s nowhere good. 

“I’m beat, I need to sleep,” he says, back still still turned, voice wavering in a way that makes him wince. He’s giving much too much away. Patrick doesn’t reply, the taut silence so fraught it makes Jon’s pulse pound. His eyes burn with unshed tears. 

Patrick clears his throat once, and then twice, voice still coming out hoarse when he says, “I’ll see you later then.” 

“Right,” Jon replies dumbly. He waits for his front door to close before he wipes his face, taking a deep sniff that comes out as a sob. 

He’d didn’t think it was possible for him to want an alpha, but now here they are, and Patrick is with Grace and doesn’t want him back. 

*

This is only Jon’s third season being captain, and while nothing has ever tested him like those first two months in 2008, this season has not been easy. Not least of which is rooming with Patrick now that he’s perfectly aware of how much he wants him. It would be better not to be drenched in his scent every time they hit the road, his own clothes taking on Patrick’s just from proximity. It would be better not to have to look at his bare skin and pink lips in low hotel light, or listen to the gentle in and out of his breathing as he sleeps, but he can’t bring himself to request a rooming reassignment. It may be pathetic but he doesn’t know how to give that up. Patrick seems fine—of course he is. He has an omega. 

Jonny’s held it inside himself for so long he finds himself spilling it all to Gabi the next time they get together and he can’t stay hard enough to fuck.

“I am so lucky, so lucky I haven’t had heat since then,” he says, head in hands, sitting naked at the end of her bed. She’s silent behind him and he doesn’t want to look over to see the look on her face. 

“Jon,” she says, thin arms going around him. “Have you tried telling him?” 

“And saying what? ‘I’m really sorry, I know you have a girl now, but I think you’re my mate?’” he says bitterly. “I can’t do that to him.” 

She sighs, resting her chin on his shoulder. “This shit is always so complicated.” 

Jon laughs weakly. “I know.” 

*

All things considered, Jon knows he should take it as a win that they manage to squeak into the playoffs at all, given all the roster changes they went through last summer. Nevertheless, it’s still vaguely embarrassing that the prior year’s cup winning team only barely makes it to the post-season. And he absolutely hates that they drew the Canucks in the first round. Jon found Kesler difficult to deal with on the best of occasions, but last year, when they eliminated them in 6 games, he hadn’t reached full sexual maturation, and he wasn’t all spun out over Patrick. 

Getting line matched against him is every bit as terrible as Jon remembers and then some. Kesler uses every single alpha trick in his toolbox to get Jon to drop to his knees and give in. He’s so consumed with fighting back, trying to get through it, he can barely think straight. As in all things, the rest of the team follows his lead, scattered, struggling, and only just holding on. They drop three straight, and the third is a real heartbreaker in front of their home crowd. It isn’t until Bolly comes back from injury and they down the Canucks in a 7-2 route that he feels like he can breathe again. They follow it up with a blowout in Rogers Arena and even hovering on the knife edge that every game could be their last, Jon feels like they can do this. All they need to do is take it one obstacle at a time. 

He doesn’t even realize that something is off with Patrick until Dr. Terry comes into the locker room after warmups with a strange look on his face. Jonny, sitting next to Patrick notices him first. 

“What’s up, doc?” he asks. 

“You have a moment to chat, Kane?” Dr. Terry asks. 

Patrick nods, shoving his socks down over his pads. “Hit me.” 

Dr. Terry darts a look over at Jon who shrugs. If Patrick doesn’t mind if he hears, Jon’s nosy enough to not discourage it. Dr. Terry sighs. “Your androgen levels came in a little higher than expected.” 

Patrick blinks up at him, expression caught. Whatever he expected Dr. Terry to say, it wasn’t that. 

“They’re within acceptable range,” Dr. Terry is quick to say, pulling a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and handing it to Patrick to look over. “But as you can see, you’re nearly 200 nanograms per deciliter higher than you were two games ago, and 600 higher than you were at your last physical before the playoffs. Is there anything I should know?” 

Patrick crumples the paper up and tosses it aside. “We’re going into game 7, just a little stressed I guess. Did you compare to last year’s playoff run?” 

“You’re about where you were in June of last year. Have you made any lifestyle changes this year, any changes in your routine?” Dr Terry asks. When Patrick shakes his head, he sighs and says, “We’ll have to do another blood test immediately before the game and between periods to make sure it stays below the league’s cutoff.” 

“Okay,” Patrick replies, and goes back to shucking off his gear. Dr. Terry nods and leaves. 

“Everything okay?” Jon asks quietly. 

Patrick is quiet for a moment like he’s going to say something else, but then he shrugs and gives him one of those blinding devil-may-care smiles. “All good.” 

*

They only have five players on the team with any game 7 experience, and Crow, who’s been a warrior the entire series, is not one of them. It’s not his fault, they’re a fucking mess out there, and they start off on the defensive after Burrows scores only 3 minutes in. Kesler rides him up and down the ice, chirping him twice as hard. And Luongo, who was pulled from both game 4 and game 5 and then benched to start 6, suddenly has the game of his life. In the end, despite the hail mary he manages to fire in while they’re on the kill to force overtime, it comes to nothing. 

He does his post games with as much captainly responsibility as he can muster, barely noticing until the oppressive hoard of reporters has cleared out that Patrick isn’t there. 

He asks Sharpy about him, and Sharpy says he’s off with Dr. Terry. 

Jon grows cold. “Is he injured?” 

Sharpy, who’s in a mood, albeit an understandable one, snorts. “I don’t fucking know, Toes. Go ask him yourself.” 

Jon blows out a breath and goes in search of him. He finds Patrick alone in the dark in one of the equipment rooms, leaning up against a massage table, still in his UnderArmour. 

“Are you hurt?” Jon demands, stepping into the room. 

Patrick’s head pops up, his eyes glowing silver in the dim room like a cat’s. And then Jon realizes. “You’re going into rut.” 

Patrick fists his hands on the edge of the table. “No shit.” 

The edge of scent is there, warm and musky. Jon isn’t sure how he didn’t notice earlier, especially with Dr. Terry saying his blood levels were rising. It’s horribly intoxicating, and Jon wants nothing more than to go to him. To bury his nose in Patrick’s throat and turn and offer himself up to him. He says with a shaking voice, “We’ll be back to Chicago soon, you can call Grace.” 

“Screw Grace,” Patrick says darkly. 

“That’s kinda the point,” Jon tries to joke. “C’mon, Peeks—” 

“You think I’m fucking like this because of her? It wasn’t her that Kesler was trying to force into submission all over the ice, right in fucking front of me. It wasn’t her that played some of the most unbelievable hockey I’ve ever seen while the rest of acted like bowled over nine-pins. Just go away, I can’t fucking think with you here.” 

Jon swallows, feeling a bit like a bowled over nine-pin himself. His body is reacting instinctively to all the hormones Patrick’s throwing off, mind whirling from the words out of his mouth. 

“Get out. Doc is gonna keep me tranqed up for the plane ride.” 

“That doesn’t sound healthy,” Jon says slowly. 

“What do you want from me? They can’t let me onto the plane with you while I’m like this.” 

“What if we did something to take the edge off?” he turns around and locks the door behind him. 

Patrick’s eyes sharpen on his. “I can’t knot you. We have to be out of here in under an hour.” 

Jon bites at his lip. “There are other things we could do.” 

“You want to fuck me?” Patrick asks. 

Jon’s taken aback a second time. “I was thinking I could blow you…” 

“Need more than that,” Patrick says raggedly. 

“Do _you_ want me to fuck you?” Jon asks, heart in his throat. 

Patrick stares at Jon fiercely, like he’s daring Jon to make something of it. Slowly, he nods. 

Jon can’t help getting into his space, palms coming up to frame his face. “I would love to.” 

Patrick swallows in on a deep inhale, dragging Jon’s scent into his lungs, and Jon can’t help but kiss him. His hands drop to Jon’s own sweat-soaked UnderArmour, fisting tight in the fabric. Jon feels himself melting and the urge to drop to his knees and let Patrick’s take him on the floor is strong. He makes himself step back, ignoring Patrick’s mindless whine. 

“Turn around and grab the table,” he says. 

Patrick looks at him through narrowed eyes, tongue running over his lower lip, before he turns and very deliberately lays his palms on top of the padded surface. Jon drags his leggings down his thighs, watching them flex and tense eagerly as the cool air hits his bare skin. They’re both filthy, covered in sweat, the scent of them combining in ways that makes Jon delirious with the possibilities. When he runs careful fingers between Patrick’s cheeks, using the pads to rub over Patrick’s hole, Patrick lets out a hiss. 

“Okay?” he asks. 

“Quit fucking around,” Patrick replies, shoulders going tight. Jon nips him just under his ear. 

Jon uses his own slick to ease the way for his cock. Patrick, tense and restive, digs his fingers into the table at the intrusion, but pushes back into the pressure when Jon drives them inside, working him open as carefully as he can when Patrick keeps ordering him to hurry up. 

He gets two fingers sunk to the last knuckles inside and the grip of Patrick’s body around them is mindblowing. Jon needs to get inside with a frenzy that astonishes him. In that one lightning bolt of a moment, he feels like he understands exactly what it’s like to be an alpha presented with an attractive omega and just _needing_ to fuck almost more than he needs air to breathe. 

“Please,” Patrick begs, unexpected and out of character, “I’m about to lose it, man.” 

Jon huffs out a sigh. He doesn’t have a knot, but Patrick also wasn’t made to take him here. He doesn’t want to rush, but he can also hear the muted conversations of their disappointed teammates just outside the door and feel the manic vibration of Patrick’s body. 

“Okay, okay,” he says, reaching behind himself to gather more slick on his fingertips and then fisting his hand down over his cock to spread it around. When he pushes inside it doesn’t go in easy. Patrick resisting from too little prep, his voice choked in his throat. 

Jon, completely on instinct, glides his palm up Patrick’s chest to wrap his fingers around Patrick’s throat, tugging his head back against his shoulder. “Relax,” he whispers against Patrick’s ear. 

Patrick whines deep in his chest, trembling, but slowly softens against him until Jon can thrust all the way inside. Patrick swallows in a deep lungful of air, and Jon feels the flex of it against the grip of his hand, but the moan he lets out when Jon draws back and then hammers back in is one of pure pleasure. 

He arches his back, and hisses out, “Yes, c’mon.” 

“You’re gonna fucking kill me,” Jon growls back, shoving in hard. They’re both wired with misdirected energy and adrenaline after that disappointing loss and it makes everything that much more intense. 

Patrick chuckles, head lolling on Jon’s shoulder, the low light in the room catching on his coin-bright eyelashes. “Seems only fair.” 

There’s a terse exchange between Q and Paul only a few feet away from them again driving home that they only have a few moments, even as Patrick shakes and gasps from another bone-rattling thrust. 

“Where’s Kane?” Q asks. 

“Needs a few moments,” is all Paul says. “He’s dealing with a 47-related issue. Might be a good idea to keep Toews away from him.” 

Patrick cracks up, “Oh fuck, if only they—” his voice breaks on another moan, “—if only they knew.” He stuffs his hand down the front of his legging, drawing his obscenely hard cock out over the waistband, knot already filling. Jonny shuts his eyes, digging his chin into Patrick’s shoulder and starts to thrust even harder, picturing it from the other side, the thick width of it pressing up against his tender insides. 

He’s close, almost cresting the wave of his climax, when Patrick stiffens up against him and says, “I’m gonna—” before cutting himself off, prompting Jon to open his eyes to watch him lose it all over the table, beautiful capable hand still working his dick. His muscles go lax like he’s going to drop to the floor so Jon has to belt an arm about his waist. 

He thrusts in hard one last time, and Patrick lets out a strangled groan, another burst of come gushing out of his cock, adding to the mess on the table as Jon comes inside him, filling him up. 

When Jon pulls out, limbs numb, Patrick rolls his shoulders, body flexing like he’s coming out of a deep stretch. He turns and leans back against the table. Jon can only just make out his expression and the red swell of his lower lip, dim as it is. 

“I’m gonna knot you for hours when we get back to Chicago,” Patrick says, barely winded, like Jon didn’t just fuck him as hard as he could manage against a damn massage table. 

Jon groans and tugs his pants back up. He’s sticky with hours old sweat and now jizz. He needs a shower badly. “That a promise?” 

*

The flight back to Chicago is torture. They sit on opposite ends of the plane, as far as they can get from each other, and Jon’s nose isn’t so brilliant that he can smell him across 12 rows, but the recycled air isn’t doing them any favors. Patrick keeps going to the bathroom, presumably to jerk off, and every time he passes Jon’s row, Jon just wants to get up and follow him. 

“You’re in a better mood than I thought you’d be,” Hoss says, looking at him over the top of his book. 

Jon, who feels twitchy and insane, would like to dispute that, but it certainly is true that he’s thinking far less about that soul-crushing loss to the fucking Canucks than he would have if Patrick hadn’t gone into rut. He has no idea what this means for the two of them, but for the first time since he woke up, hungover and sore after his heat last June, he has hope. 

Patrick comes back down the aisle to go to his seat and he eyes Hossa sitting next to Jon with a dark look. Jon shouldn’t tease him, he knows Patrick’s firing nearly 100% on instinct right now, but he can’t help dropping him a wink that has Patrick’s nostrils flaring. The searing look Patrick gives him tells him he’s going to get it as soon as they’re home, early hour bedamned. 

*

Jon falls asleep on Patrick’s knot early in the AM, Patrick spooned up behind him, his nose tucked to Jon’s nape and his arms tight around Jon’s hips. He’s sore as fuck when he wakes up at 1:30 in the afternoon with a billion “better luck next year” messages on his phone from his friends and family. The bed is empty, covers thrown back on the side closest to the windows, but the shower is running so Jon knows that Patrick’s still here. 

He lies in bed for a moment, relishing the feel of his mattress and soft sheets and ignoring the many aches and pains leftover from being fucked hard, multiple times, after playing a desperate game 7 in the first round of the playoffs. 

The mattress bounces and a slightly damp Patrick clad only in a towel climbs into bed behind him. 

“How are you doing?” he asks tentatively. 

Jon hums and weighs his options. He rolls over to face Patrick. “Are you gonna claim me or not?” 

“I—” Patrick looks flabbergasted. Whatever he was expecting Jon to say it wasn’t that. “You want that? You’ve always said you don’t want an alpha.” 

“I don’t want some traditional alpha jackass that my parents choose,” Jon corrects. “I never said I didn’t want you.” 

“They’re not going to like it,” Patrick says softly, but his eyes are shining, and he reaches out a hand to trace over Jon’s lower lip. 

“What are you going to do about Grace?” Jon asks, changing the subject, because there’s nothing to be said. Jon’s parents _are not_ going to like it, but it doesn’t matter, because Jon’s an adult and he has to make his own choices. Of course he knows the inevitable battle over pledging himself to Patrick until one or the both of them dies isn’t going to be that simple, but that’s a bridge to cross on another day. 

Patrick groans and buries his face into his pillow. “We broke up.” 

“When?” Jon asks, surprised. 

“The night you kicked me out of your apartment?” Patrick replies. “I shouldn’t have been fucking around with that in the first place.” 

“Why did you?” 

Patrick groans again. “I was lonely and you were like Everest. It just seemed impossible.” 

Jon laughs, because it’s not like he doesn’t understand. He’s made a complete mess of everything these last few months. 

“What about that Gabi girl?” Patrick asks, face twisting with displeasure, like just saying her name causes him physical pain. 

Jon says, “I wasn’t lying when I said it was just casual. I didn’t—you have to know—” 

Patrick lets out a pleased rumble and rolls on top of Jon, blanketing him with his body. “Good,” he says, catching Jon’s mouth up in a kiss. His rut burned out hours ago, but he’s already starting to harden against Jon’s belly again, that irrepressible alpha sex drive he claims he doesn’t have fueling it and kickstarting Jon’s own. 

“Love how wet you get,” Patrick says when he reaches down between them and finds that Jon’s already ready. Dragging kisses across Jon’s throat and collarbone, he drives his cock in with a single thrust that has Jon’s breath catching, legs trembling with the rightness of it. 

“Only happens with you,” Jon moans, flexing back into it, widening his thighs, feeling zapped from the inside out every time Patrick’s cock strikes his prostate at just the right angle. Patrick’s got such big and thick equipment running into it is sort of inevitable, but Jon knows enough now to realize that he’s still good at this, knowing just the right way to fuck Jon silly without giving him more than he can handle. He may be in the mood to be pounded into oblivion during heat, but when he’s sober, it’s a tall ask. 

“Oh, really?” Patrick says slowly, clearly delighted with this information. 

Jon huffs out a breath, reaching over his head to grab one of the rungs of the headboard so that he has something to hang onto. “I didn’t hate heat. I hated it with anybody else who wasn’t you.” 

Patrick groans and starts pumping in harder. “Oh fuck.” 

Jon groans and gets his feet flat on the bed, raising himself up into Patrick’s thrusts. Perhaps getting pounded into oblivion is exactly what the doctor ordered. 

“Can I claim you now?” Patrick asks. Strictly speaking he doesn’t need Jon’s permission. 

“Are you gonna be able to uh—I know it can be hard to do it consciously,” Jon breathes, half out of his mind from the pressure on his prostate. Claiming is one of those funny instinctive impulses that doesn’t always play nice with a 47s forebrain. He clutches at Patrick’s broad back with his other arm, keeping him close. 

Patrick snorts. “I’ve had to hold back from claiming you since the first time we fucked,” he says, voice ragged as they strain together. “I don’t think it’s gonna be a problem.” 

Jon shudders remembering that night with a sudden burst of clarity. In some ways he wishes Patrick had just done it then. It would’ve saved them a lot of time. But Jon probably would’ve rejected his claim back then, furious and scared of his parents’ disapproval, unaware of just what he was threatening to give up. He doesn’t want to think about it, they’re here now. 

He’s hit with the first wash of pheromones between breaths—G-proteins that 46ers without vomeronasal organs would never be able to smell, but will signal to every 47 who gets within a few feet exactly what happened here. It settles something inside of him that’s been off kilter for months, making him feel erratic and crazy. Patrick curses and comes with a jolt, a tie brought on by claiming. 

Patrick’s half-useless during the tie under most circumstances, and this time he’s even more languid and sleepy, making it hard for Jon who still hasn’t come yet to get anywhere. 

“Help me out here, baby,” Jon says, the petname spilling out without a thought, flexing his legs so that Patrick gets the hint and rolls over, taking Jon with him. Jon groans when the sudden change in angle drives Patrick’s knot in even deeper. Patrick’s lashes lazily flutter over his eyes as he keeps coming, but he bites at his lip in interest as Jon starts to jerk off, chasing his own orgasm. 

After a few moments Patrick gets back in the game and tugs him down to his chest for a deep kiss while he rocks his hips in minute little increments, rubbing Jon’s prostate with his knot. Jon keeps jerking himself off and when Patrick reaches between them, he at first thinks it’s because he’s going to take over. But Patrick slides his fingers back further, underneath the heavy weight of his sac to press at his perineum, working his prostate from both sides until it’s too much and he comes with a cry that Patrick swallows down, not letting up, until Jon breaks the kiss and grabs at his bicep, stilling his arm. It’s so intense, he can’t stop shaking. 

“Can’t take anymore,” he slurs. When he’s in heat, or the sympathetic heat created by Patrick’s rut, he barely notices this part, speared on Patrick’s knot after coming, a relentless squeeze against his tender prostate, body so revved up for more more more. Now it’s overwhelming, taking him to the limit and back. Patrick rubs soothing circles at the tensed small of his back with the very tips of his fingers, and before Jon knows it he’s coming again, mouth opening on a soundless scream, tears leaking out of his eyes that he barely notices Patrick wiping away with his thumbs. 

“God you’re gorgeous,” Patrick mutters, fingertips stroking over his scalp and through his hair. “And you’re mine.” 

When his knot finally goes down Jon rolls off of him with a pained gasp, even as he finds Patrick’s hand and clutches at it. The thought of not touching him right now an impossibility. 

* 

Jon’s friends descend on him two days later with a plan to “cheer” him up from the horrible first round exit, inadvertently interrupting their connubial bliss. 

“I hate Dan,” Patrick says feelingly from Jon’s bed. They haven’t had sex in a few hours, but he’s been lazing around naked, which is how Jon likes him. 

“No you don’t,” Jon replies, just out of the shower, finger-combing his hair. 

“You can’t even eat the food at this stupid restaurant he picked.” 

“Quit playing the jealous alpha,” Jon says, coming over to the bed to drop a kiss across Patrick’s forehead. 

“I’m making up for lost time,” Patrick replies with an impish grin that belies the way he’d terrorized the poor alpha who’d delivered their takeout last night. Jon would say he minded, but that would be a horrible lie. 

“Go shower, we’re gonna be late.” 

“I _do_ hate Dan,” Patrick says, but he rolls out of bed anyway. Strictly speaking, Patrick takes less time to get ready than Jon does, and he’s out of the shower and dressed by the time Jon’s figured out what pair of shorts he wants to wear. 

When Jon’s finally settled on a complete outfit and found his keys and wallet, he finds Patrick in his kitchen throwing something together in a mixing bowl. 

“What are you doing?” he asks with round eyes. Patrick is possibly the least domestic human he’s ever met. He can only just manage plain pasta and scrambled eggs. 

Instead of answering, Patrick asks, “Where’s your tupperware?”

“In the cabinet above the fridge?” Jon says tentatively, looking into the bowl surreptitiously while Patrick starts rooting around in his cupboards for a container. It’s just a green salad with tofu cubes, chia seeds, and the special dressing he keeps in a jar in the fridge. Jon has no idea what Patrick could possibly be up to here. “What’s this for?” 

“You can’t eat anything at that restaurant!” Patrick replies hotly, not meeting his eyes, as he dumps the contents of the bowl into a large tupperware and gives it a shake. 

“I can probably find something,” Jon points out. 

Patrick shrugs nonchalantly and snaps the lid shut. “Well, now you have this.” 

Jon is speechless as it finally sinks in that Patrick is _providing_ for him. He stares at the tupperware in astonishment as Patrick turns around and starts filling one of Jon’s reusable bottles with water from the tap. 

He goes up behind Patrick and wraps his arms around Patrick’s waist, pressing another kiss to the side of his neck. 

“Thank you,” he says, trying not to grin at the way Patrick’s blushing. 

“Shut up,” Patrick replies. 

Jon laughs delighted and seizes up the tupperware and the bottle. “Can’t take it back now.” 

Patrick rolls his eyes and changes the subject. “I’m driving,” he says. 

“But you’re so slow!” 

“And you’re a road hazard,” Patrick replies, tugging Jon’s keys away from him. “I’m driving.” 

Jon gives in, but only because Patrick made him a salad and then got embarrassed about it. 

*

Of course there was a perfectly serviceable brown rice bowl on the menu at the restaurant Dan chose, but Jon sticks with his salad and water much to the chagrin of the waitstaff. They’re starstruck by the presence of both Jon and Patrick and keep offering to make Jon whatever he wants. His salad by contrast isn’t even very good, a little too heavy on the dressing, but he relishes it anyway, especially the way Patrick’s eyes light up whenever he notices Jon tucking into it. 

When Patrick’s off in the bathroom after they’ve cleared away entrees and are waiting for desserts, Dan says, “So what’s up with bringing Kane with you.” 

“Yeah, what gives,” his friend Kevin asks. “This is bro time!” 

Jon shrugs, caught. He wasn’t intending to make any declaratory statements when he asked Dan if Patrick could come, but the thought of being parted from Patrick right now is inconceivable. He knows that should pass in the next few days, but right now the mere fact that Kevin grabbed the seat in the booth next to him, leaving Patrick to sit with Dan has been making him a little crazy. He’s proud of the two of them for not being incredibly obvious about it though. They have at least a little chill, beyond poorly made salads that is. 

Before he can answer a waiter pops up with a large bowl of bright blue cotton candy and sets it in front of Jon, Patrick walking up behind him with a grin on his face. Jon hadn’t been able to eat any of the other desserts between the dairy and the gluten, but the cotton candy, which if he’s not mistaken is directly off the kids menu, is pure sugar. 

He starts laughing. “Jesus christ, man,” he says as he tears off a hunk of it with relish and pops it into his mouth. It's gonna turn his teeth and tongue blue, but he couldn't care less right now. 

Kevin and Dan look back and forth between them both as Patrick slides back into the booth. Jon sees the creeping realization as it dawns on Dan's face. 

Dan opens his mouth, but Jon cuts him off before he can get a word in, "You always did say he was rubbing off on me." 

Patrick, in the middle of taking a swig of his water, chokes. 

"Go big or go home, eh, Jon?" Dan says, shaking his head, but he's smiling. He knows the type of risk Jon is taking here, but Jon is glad that he doesn't seem to disapprove. There's a long road ahead of him. When his parents realize, when the org and the league realizes, they're going to have a lot of explaining to do. Jon can only steel his spine and remember that he's not going into it alone. 

"That's my MO," Jon replies, and Patrick gives him that thousand-watt smile that could power a city block. It will be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> There's a mix I made to go along with this: [8tracks](https://8tracks.com/stolenbytigers/i-ll-be-the-cure) | [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/user/puzzlemint/playlist/0iI7gK405GAW4erWWS2MEr) | [google play](https://play.google.com/music/playlist/AMaBXym2dwr8p-No8c3XRIWO3YXXwZYttr2EVJ1279cussGZT3WgjFITCnAD5EtkSgya44ULhE1GsHKYJjXBWGrLPznN6mZDdg%3D%3D)


End file.
